A few weeks ago, we had some good news on the CISPA front when the Obama administration first voiced vague opposition to current cybersecurity legislation, and then made an explicit veto threat against CISPA as it stood. Since then, however, CISPA has not only passed the House, but has also been amended. Fortunately, the White House is not quite satisfied with these amendments and has reiterated its concerns about CISPA and the possibility of a veto, even in this modified form.

When CISPA passed in the House, we had our first real wake-up call. While many tech companies are staying silent on the matter, Mozilla is the first major tech company to come out and ream CISPA for infringing on privacy and being ripe for abuse. For the most part, CISPA actually makes life easier for most tech companies by protecting them from practically all liability should they share information with the U.S. government, so this opposition is largely in principle as opposed to some sort of savvy business move. Hopefully, Mozilla will help set an example for other companies that are as of yet only tentatively opposed.

While not expect to reach a vote until Friday, CISPA has been passed in the House by a majority of 248-168, not quite enough to override a potential veto. During the proceedings Thursday afternoon, CISPA was amended several times before being passed in the early vote. The bill will now move to the Senate.

Not too long ago, the Obama administration offered a weak, but still welcome criticism of everyone's favorite cybersecurity bill CISPA. While the announcement then neither mentioned CISPA by name nor bring up the word "veto," there's been a follow-up announcement that does both. Yes, the Obama administration has issued a formal veto threat against CISPA, as is. In the coming days before the vote, CISPA does face some amendments, and I'd also like to remind you that a veto threat is worth as much as the paper it's printed on. In this case it's an email, but it's still better than an endorsement, right?

While there was a big outcry against SOPA that included protest from many well-known Internet giants like Wikipedia and Reddit, the backlash against CISPA hasn't had quite as many champions. Some sites that came out against SOPA, like Facebook, are actually pro-CISPA for very self-interested but logical reasons. Along with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), whose opposition to the bill is frankly no surprise, the American Library Association (ALA) has also come out against CISPA, and in doing so have suddenly become my heroes. Here's why.

With CISPA's first day in Congress coming up in the next week, it's about the time you could expect the White House to comment on the bill, specifically whether or not we can expect opposition in the form of a veto. The good news is that the White House has issued a statement that echos the same kind of privacy and civil liberty concerns that many CISPA critics have. The statement does not, however, mention anything about vetos, or even refer to CISPA by name. That said, the gist of the message is pretty clear.

When you're dealing with a contentious bill, there's always the hope that it might get better, and the fear that it might get worse. Or, what seems to be the case with the new draft of CISPA, where it just gets different. This new draft, which incorporates two previous amendments along with some other modifications, changes a significant amount of language in the bill, and adds a lot more as well. Whether or not that really changes anything in a particularly meaningful way, however, is a bit of a different question. CISPA had its problems before, and the new draft definitely shuffles things around a little, but it looks like we're still dealing with a similar amount of similar issues.

When SOPA was rolling through Congress, there was a lot of loud protest not only by webizens, but also by many Internet behemoths like Wikipedia, Reddit, and even Google. When it comes to CISPA, on the other hand, expect no such help. It might surprise you to know that Facebook, which was rather quietly anti-SOPA during the blackouts, is actually pro-CISPA. And even though that might surprise you, it shouldn't. Why? Because it makes total sense.

It wasn't long ago that the potentially Internet-destroying twins SOPA and PIPA were effectively defeated, but ever since they snuck up on the Internet-at-large, there's been the worry that something similar might happen again. Well, it's happening. The new bill HR 3523, or the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), while different from SOPA in many ways, is pushing its way through Congress as we speak, and could pose a serious threat to the Internet that is both very similar and very different from SOPA.